Grandma Moses is among the most famous twentieth- century painters of the UnitedStates. yet she did not start painting until she was in her late seventies. As she once said toherself"l would never sit back ina rocking chair, waiting for someonc to help me. , Noonc could have had a more productive old age. She wasborn Anna Mary Robertson on a farm in New York State, one of five boysind five girls. At twelve she left home and was in domestic service. until twenty-seven, shemarriedThomas Moses. the hired hand of one of her employers. They farmed most of theirlives, first inVirginia and then in New York State. at Eagle Bridge , She had ten childrcn,of whom five survived. her husband died in 1927. Grandma Moses painted a ittle asa child and made embroidery pictures as a hobby,but only changcd to oilsin an old age because her hands had become too stiff to sew andshe wanted to keepbusyand pass the time. Her pictures were first sold at the localdrugstore at a market and were soon noticed by a businessman who bought everything shepainted. Three of the pictures exhibited in the Muscum of Modern Art, and in 1940 she hadher first exhibition in New York. Between the 1930's and her death, she produced some2,c00 pictures;detailcd and lively portrayals of the country life she had known for so long.with a wonderful sense of color and form. "I think really hard till I think of somethingreally petty. and thenI paintit.she said.